8/19/2019 Review Paul Ziff
1/3
Semantic Analysis by Paul ZiffReview by: Paul BenacerrafThe Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec., 1964), pp. 193-194Published by: Association for Symbolic LogicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2270374 .
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8/19/2019 Review Paul Ziff
2/3
THE JOURNAL OF SYMBOLIC
LOGIC
Volume 29, Number 4, Dec.
1964
REVIEWS
Numerical
cross
references
are to
previous
reviews
in
this
JOURNAL
or
to
A
bibli-
ography f symbolic
ogic (this JOURNAL,
vol.
1, pp.
121-218),
or to
Additions
and
corrections
to
the latter
(this
JOURNAL,
vol.
3, pp. 178-212).
References
beginning
with a Roman numeral are
by
volume
and
page
to
the place
at which a
publication
has
previously
been reviewed
or
listed.
When
necessary
in
con-
nection with such
references,
a third
number
will be added in
parentheses, to indicate
position on the page.
Such
a
reference
is
ordinarily
to the
publication itself,
but
when
so indicated
the reference
may
be
to
the review or to both
the
publication
and
its
review. Thus
XXII
309
will
refer
to
the
review
beginning
on
page 309
of
volume 22
of this
JOURNAL,
or to the
publication
which s there
reviewed;
XXII
307 will
refer
to one of the reviews or one of the publications reviewed or listed on page 307 of
volume 22,
with
reliance
on the context to show which one
is
meant;
and
XXIII
23(1)
will
refer to the
first item listed on
page
23
of
volume
23, i.e.,
to
Boehner's
article, History of
scholastic
logic.
References such as
7145, 1253
are the
entries so
numbered
in
the Bibliography.
Similar
references preceded
by
the latter
A
or
containing
the fraction
i
or a
decimal
point (as A15524, 186j1, 2882.1)
are
to
the Additions and corrections.
A
reference
followed by
the letter
A is
a double reference to an
entry
of
the same number in
the
Bibliography and
in
the
Additions and
corrections.
PAUL ZIFF.
Semantic analysis. Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1960, xi +
255
pp.
The author's
principal purpose
is to
present
a metatheoretical
account of
the
semantics
of a natural
language.
He wishes
to show how
one
might
arrive
at
dictionary
entries
for the
morphemic
elements
of a natural
language
and
examines
what sorts
of
methodological problems might
be
encountered
along
the
way.
Although
he
does not
attempt
to
provide
a
discovery procedure
for
dictionary
entries,
he does
outline
in
some
detail
what
he
expects
would be the
major steps
in such
an
investigation.
We
shall
try
to
reproduce
this outline
here, greatly
oversimplifying
as we
go.
It
is
assumed
at
the
outset that the
linguist
has a
grammar
of the
language,
in
the
sense of Chomsky (cf. Noam Chomsky, Syntactic structures, The Hague 1957),
i.e., one
which
generates
all and
only
the
grammatical
utterances
of
the
language
and
assigns
a
structural
description
to each.
The
procedure
is
then to
pair
utterance
types
with
sets
of conditions
such that the
pairing
[uid,
wj] expresses
a
regularity
to
be
found in
connection
with
the utterance
ua.
These
pairings
are obtained
in
two
different
ways: (a) by
observations
carried
out
in
the context of
utterance
-
in which
case
the
regularity
takes
the form
Generally,
when
ui
is
uttered,
then
conditions wj
are
satisfied ;
and
(b)
by projection (to
be discussed
below)
-
in
which
case the
regularity
takes the
form
If
ui
is
uttered, then,
in
a standard
case,
conditions wj
are satisfied. Since
many regularities
of the
first
sort
will
obtain
which
will not
be
relevant to an analysis of the meaning ofmorphological elements of ui (let ui be I have
a
toothache
.
and
the condition
wt
be
that
the
Sun is
ninety-three
million
miles
from
the
Earth, a
condition
which will
presumably
be associated with
every utterance),
proposed pairings
are
judged
for
possible
relevance
according
to certain
principles,
and those
judged
irrelevant are excluded
(cf. Chapter II).
Accordingly,
let
0
be the set
of
utterances
for which
relevant
observational
pairings
have been obtained.
These pairings are then used
to
associate
with
each
morphological
element
mi
of
0
that has
meaning
in
the
language
conditions which
might plausibly
193
8/19/2019 Review Paul Ziff
3/3
194
REVIEWS
represent the contribution
made by mt to the utterances in which it appears. Taking
meaning to
be
primarily
a matter of
non-syntactic semantic regularities
and of contrast,
Ziff
forms
the
conditions to be associated
with
mi
by taking
into consideration both
those
conditions associated
with each element of 0 that contains
mt,
and
each
element
of 0 that contains a morphological element that contrasts with
mi.
Letting
dj(mt)
be
the
j-th element
of 0
(under
some
enumeration) which contains
mi,
then
dj(mt)lmk
is that element of
0 which
results by replacing
mi
with
mk
in
dj(mt).
We call the first
set the
distributive
set for
mi
in
0, and, relative to any given
element
dj(mi)
of the
distributive set,
dj(mt)lmk
is
an element of
the contrastive
set for
mi
in
0. Keeping
i,
j,
and k
fixed,
and
ignoring
many complications
which Ziff points out, then the
peculiar
contribution
made
by
mi
to
dj(mi)
will
be those conditions associated with
dj(mt)
minus
those associated
with
dj(mt)lmk.
Letting
A
vary you obtain a set
of
sets
of
conditions
for
the j-th element
of
the
distributive
set for
mi.
Letting
j
vary
as
well, you
associate with
mi
a
set
of sets
of
setsof conditions. Eliminating irrelevant ones
according
to
further
principles
(cf. pp. 160-6)
Ziff
finally obtains a set (of sets
of
sets
ofconditions)
on the
basis of
which the
dictionary entry
is
to
be devised. The dictionary
entry
for
mi
is conceived of as a
theory
to
explain
the
regularities
thus obtained.
Given these
dictionary definitions
it
will
then be
possible
to project conditions
(i.e.,
derived
pairings)
onto utterances not
in
0-
utterances not yet uttered, or infre-
quently uttered,
or
with
respect
to
which no
relevant
regularities
have been
found
on
the
first level.
Also,
since
the
language
under
study
will probably contain meta-
linguistic statements,
further
projections
can
be made
on
the
basis of the knowledge
at hand:
A
bachelor
is an
unmarried man.
can
be used
to
obtain conditions pertaining
to bachelor even if that word does not occur in 0, although the others do. So,
pairings
obtained
by projection
serve as
correctives to the
original assignment,
if
they
are
disconfirmed,
and as a means to
extending
the
analysis
to
utterances
not
in 0.
The final chapter
is
devoted
to an application of these techniques to an analysis
of the
English
word
good.
Unquestionably,
a
theory
of this sort
raises
many
more
problems
and
questions
than it
can
settle.
That is one of its virtues.
Many
of
these have been discussed
by
other
reviewers
(cf.
XXIX 2
16(12)
and
XXIX
2
16(13)
for
more comprehensive
and
searching reviews). Nevertheless,
this
reviewer
found
the
book an
extremely
stimu-
lating
and
original
one. It
is,
to this reviewer's
knowledge,
the first ystematic attempt
to write on these questions. Whether or not a completed semantic theory of a natural
language
will have
the
form
outlined
in
this
book,
it will
certainly have to deal
decisively
with the
problems
raised
by
Ziff. Of
interest to
philosophers
will be
the
question
whether
the notion
of
meaning
as
explicated by
Ziff
can
serve
as
the basis
for the traditional
philosophical notion(s)
of
analytic.
It
seems clear
to this reviewer
that
it
cannot.
A finished
semantic
analysis
a
la
Ziff
will
be
an
empirical theory
containing hypotheses
concerning
the
meaning
of
morphological
elements
of
the
language.
As
such,
it
will
provide
no
sharp way
of
distinguishing
between
regularities
associated with
mi
because
certain
(non-linguistic) regularities
obtain in the
world
(e.g.
cows
are
not
blue)
and those associated with
mi
for
linguistic
reasons
(e.g.
cows are animals). Borderline cases (e.g. a cow is a quadruped) will remain thus.
Also of
interest to
philosophers,
particularly
those
interested
in
linguistic analysis,
will
be
the
methodological points
that
are to be
drawn
concerning
the
confirmability
of
metalinguistic
statements
about
a
natural
language
if
Ziff's
account
is
even
roughly
correct.
Space
does not
permit
discussion of these
issues
here.
PAUL
BENACERRAF
HAROLD JEFFREYS.
Scientific inference. Second edition
of VII 175(9).
Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge 1957,
viii
+ 236 pp.
Harold Jeffreys s the author
of several classics
in
applied and applicable mathe-
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